newbie to all of this...have questions re: PC monitor

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

See post below about the same thing. Does the receiver have VGA out or
something else compatible with the monitor? You will get a great picture,
but HD goes up to 1920x1080 so you won't be able to display the full res. on
a 1600xsomething monitor. But still, it should be cool. I would do it in a
second.

--Dan

"Irulan" <lrulan@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:TqmdnW-u6eIbdLHcRVn-qw@comcast.com...
> I'm sure someone here can help me with a couple of questions. I have
> a spare 21" computer monitor capable of up to 1600xsomething pixels and
> an older RCA DTC100 satellite receiver. Can I hook these 2 up to watch
> HDTV? In other words, can this be a poor man's HDTV setup?
> Radio Shack has indoor HDTV antennas for around $40. Thanks for any info.

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

There's no harm in trying. The 1920x1080i is a 16:9 aspect-ratio
signal. This means that you'll have to play with your VGA monitor's
screen-size controls to 'compress' the screen into a letterbox. (unless
you like distorted, fun-house mirror effects!)

Some monitors can compress the necessary amount, and some can't.
The main requirement is supporting the unusually short retrace-time
between interlaced fields. The horizontal scan-line rate (~33KHz for
1080i) is very easily handled by a multisync monitor. (The scanline
rate corresponds to a 540p @ 60Hz signal, which is less than
800x600 @ 60Hz.)

Even a "cheaper" SVGA monitor should give you more detail than
a low-end CRT HDTV (26"+.) The dot-pitches on the low-end (<$1000) CRT
HDTVs are just horrendous -- not much better than 720x480p.

dg wrote:
> See post below about the same thing. Does the receiver have VGA out or
> something else compatible with the monitor? You will get a great picture,
> but HD goes up to 1920x1080 so you won't be able to display the full res. on
> a 1600xsomething monitor. But still, it should be cool. I would do it in a
> second.
>
> --Dan
>
> "Irulan" <lrulan@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:TqmdnW-u6eIbdLHcRVn-qw@comcast.com...
>
>>I'm sure someone here can help me with a couple of questions. I have
>>a spare 21" computer monitor capable of up to 1600xsomething pixels and
>>an older RCA DTC100 satellite receiver. Can I hook these 2 up to watch
>>HDTV? In other words, can this be a poor man's HDTV setup?
>>Radio Shack has indoor HDTV antennas for around $40. Thanks for any info.
>
>
>